


The Prettiest Picture

by MymbleHowl



Series: Nest [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, I blame Theon, Kink Negotiation, OC children - Freeform, Polyamory, Then porn without plot, Threesome, too much use of the word bouncing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:41:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26779057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MymbleHowl/pseuds/MymbleHowl
Summary: In the first flourishes of spring, Sansa, Jon and Theon’s entanglement has grown into a woven bloom of love. The complicated political ramifications occasionally bring their own rewards.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Jon Snow, Theon Greyjoy/Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Series: Nest [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952410
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	The Prettiest Picture

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos on Greedy. If that fic was self-indulgent, this is more so. The fluff has been turned up to 11, their kinks are probably even more niche. 
> 
> I haven’t tagged all the kinks because I’m not sure how to name them. Jon wants breast milk and to call Sansa mama. Theon wants to watch Sansa and Jon (it doesn’t feel particularly voyeuristic, it’s more like he’s made a rather specific search on Pornhub). Sansa wants to deny Theon and tell them both what to do, which ends up being a bit Dom/Sub and a bit praise kink. There is explicit Snowjoy, so if that’s not your cup of tea, maybe don’t read it, or do and find you can like English Breakfast and Earl Grey. Or read it and find I’m terrible at making any kind of tea.
> 
> I still don’t know what to think about this, it’s almost double the length of Greedy but nothing really happens. There’s also a stupid number of original child characters to think about and some odd, probably unnecessary political conversations.

There were 12yds of sky blue silk. Sweetrobin held out the end of the bale to them and her mother cooed and said that the Arryn colours suited Sansa’s eyes so.

“Yes,” agreed Sweetrobin, “she would be the prettiest picture, in a gown of this.”

Jeyne gave Sansa a little smile, before turning to the visitors to accept the gift. Even with the intermittent streams of snow melt and the whispered shoots of spring it was still cold enough in the North that they had to be inside to welcome the visitors.

“What a beautiful gift, the North thanks the Vale,” The queen said.

Sansa didn’t look Sweetrobin in the eye, almost as if she was demure, really she was scanning the hall for Jon and Theon, they were standing together, Alarra pulling on Theon’s hand, bored. Jon’s hand must be supporting Torr’s head but in half light it was hard to tell he had the babe bound to him. Sansa normally had Torr swaddled to her, even as she sat by the Queen in the North’s side and met petitioners and supplicants. But although she didn’t want a marriage alliance, meeting the Vale retinue with Torr against her chest had felt too audacious. After all she did want grain, and peace, probably in that order.

Still it was hard to focus on ceremonial diplomacy and niceties when she wanted to be across the hall to hear Alarra’s giggles. Theon had lifted her now and was dropping and then catching the squirming three year old. Jon was saying something to them both, and Sansa knew he would be half telling them off, half laughing. Alarra reached out for her Da and pulled him towards her Papa and the whole thing was the prettiest picture.

After the party from the Vale had been shown to their rooms Sansa hurried back to her own. Beth had arranged it so they had a small solar now which led into the bedroom and this room was packed with children. Theon appeared to be encouraging them to balance on the furniture, whilst also instructing Mara Umber on how to fletch her arrows and bouncing a grizzly, hungry, 6 moon babe on his lap.

“Where’s Jon?” Sansa asked as Jonnel Tarly jumped into her from the arm of the settle.

Alarra was following behind Jonnel and attempted to balance there too, “Mama, look,” she shouted happily.

Sansa lifted her off in alarm, “I’m not sure that’s safe sweetling,” she said with an exasperated look at Theon.

He shrugged, “she’s got fantastic balance, I think she’s going to be like Bran.”

Sansa raised her eyebrows at him and said nothing. Alarra had raced off to climb up behind Jonnel onto the cushioned blanket box, in front of them the Umber twins were stepping precariously from one chair to another.

“Where’s Jon?” She asked again taking Torr from Theon and sitting on the settle and giving the balancing girls a hard stare, “climb down, I don’t want you to fall on Torr,” she told them.

“He went into Wintertown to help fix a roof before the light fades. How many families did you and Lady Cassel put out so you could accommodate that silken boy?”

“I remember when you were a silken boy,” she said to Theon with a look not dissimilar to the one she had used on the girls. They were now sitting beside the fire playing something with the cyvasse pieces. Sansa unlaced the front of her gown for Torr, hoping he hadn’t got too grizzly to feed, but he was fine, she stroked the baby’s jaw to try and stop him falling asleep as he fed.

“I would still look very fine in silk,” claimed Theon.

“Indeed,” said Sansa, “I could make you a tunic of that blue silk Sweetrobin brought.”

“That’d be an interesting move,” Theon laughed, “anyway, that blue is better suited to you than me,”

“That’s what Sweetrobin said, he said I’d be the prettiest picture,”

Theon stood up from the window seat and sat next to Sansa on the settle, his arm across the back.

“He has little imagination then,” he whispered to Sansa, “you are even prettier out of gown than in it,”

“Theon,” she said sharply, her eyes flicking a warning to Alarra and the other little girls on the floor.

“I think the prettiest picture I’ve ever seen is you bounce-”

“Theon” she said even more sharply, interrupting him, and he just grinned at her, she turned away as if she wanted to hide her own smile.

“Don’t spend too long at the feast,” he said, “I like making pretty pictures.”

She sighed and shook her head at him and he crouched to the girls on the floor and soon became caught up in their game, at least until Raya Umber sent him away claiming “no, no, the dragons are all nice.”

Sansa was changing her day dress for an overgown died with rose madder and a wide gold silk girdle tied under her breasts when Jon came into the bedroom.

“You’re all wet,” she scolded him.

“Aye, and?” He replied.

“You’ll catch a chill,” she stepped forward to unbuckle his leather tunic.

“Stop, I can do it myself, mother,” he held out his hand to her, “you’ll only get your finery dirty.”

“Mother?” She replied, laughing.

“Well don’t use the same tone on me you would use on Alarra.” He scowled back at her.

“I think I perfected it on you and Theon before I ever tried it on Alarra,” she told him, “how is my hair?”

“Red,” Jon huffed, “braided,” he looked at her as he discarded the padded woollen jerkin he’d had underneath the leather, even his undershirt was damp, it clung to him, “beautiful.”

“Yes but does it need to be braided anew?” Sansa asked. “Never mind,” she continued as he looked up at her with wide eyes whilst he unfastened his boots, “Theon,” she called.

“Yes, oh Pearl of the North,” he said, coming in, “Jon Snow, why are there clothes all over the floor?”

“Careful or he’ll call you father,” Sansa said.

“Be a good boy Jon, and hang up all your things,” Theon said, Sansa looked at the way he held himself like a dare: kiss me, argue with me, want me, deny me and the way Jon looked back, caught in his game. It was the cusp between them, fierce and tender, that filled her heart and ensnared her all at once.

Jon bent and picked up the clothes and hung them to dry.

“Theon,” Sansa said, and found she was breathing out as if she had just been touched, or kissed even, “Theon, do I need to braid my hair anew?”

“No,” he stroked her hairline lightly, “If this doesn’t make Robert Arryn develop an imagination I don’t know what will,” he added running a finger along the top of the girdle.

“What?” asked Jon, all tension and fists suddenly.

“He’s teasing,” Sansa said gently.

Theon shrugged, “Sweetrobin can imagine your tits all he likes, it won’t be as pretty as the picture of how they bounce when-“

“Theon!” She admonished, “wait with the bouncing.”

“Bouncing?” Jon asked, but he didn’t seem much bothered about an answer. He licked his lips very slightly instead as if he was thinking about something, “anytime Arryn’s eyes drop to your breasts, I’m going to picture the time you let us both suckle at your nipples and lick up the milk,” he said quietly.

Sansa tried to give him her sharpest look but she bit her lip instead and then Mara Umber was calling “Tanty Sansa, Tanty Sansa,” so she rushed out of the bedroom, half aware Theon was whispering something undoubtedly provocative to Jon.

Torr had a Cyvasse elephant in his mouth and Alarra was crying and Seren Umber was trying to prise it out of his fingers and Mara was trying to stop her little sister and hold the baby. Sansa expertly got the elephant from him and replaced it with the bone teether that Val had gifted to Alarra. She handed the elephant to Alarra.

Ghost was lying across the hearth, almost steaming, Raya Umber was watching him, entranced. Sansa sighed, there was almost no room with all the children and the skewed furniture and the slumbering direwolf.

“So,” said Theon coming back in, “I thought you could take these three down as your ladies in waiting.”

“Where’s Jonnel?” Sansa asked.

“Gilly came for her,” he said.

Jon came into the solar and picked up Alarra, and asked her “why the tears sweet girl?”

“Torr take ephelant,” she said with a scowl to rival his.

“Elephant,” Jon supplied.

“Aye, my ephelant!” Alarra huffed indignantly.

“Ghost is here,” Sansa said to Jon.

“Aye,” Jon said, “he followed me home.”

“Anyway, you take those 3, since I assume the queen is caught up with your mother,” Theon began, “then Jon and I can take Alarra and Torr down.”

“Sit with mama,” said Alarra.

“Not today, little pup,” said Theon to her.

“We need you to help Papa and me with Torr,” said Jon earnestly and Alarra nodded, serious. Then she put the elephant in her own mouth.

“No, ephelants not for mouths,” said Theon to her with a smile and a shake of his head, and Sansa was glad it was him who had said it and not her for she would have been cross and Alarra might have cried again.

“Doesn’t Raya’s hair need,” Sansa looked at Raya Umber’s braids, “Oh did you do it?” she asked Theon.

“Yes, I am actually fairly capable with children despite my tendency to let them climb on furniture,” he claimed.

Sansa went to hand Torr to Theon and whispered “I love you,” before kissing him as chastely as it was possible to kiss Theon Greyjoy.

She fastened Seren’s surcoat for her whilst she waited for Theon to pass on the whispered love, when she stood up Theon had his finger on Jon’s cheek.

“Be good,” she told Alarra and possibly Jon.

“I love you,” Jon whispered to her, completing the chain and she kissed him on the forehead.

Out in the passageway she showed the Umber girls how to walk like ladies in waiting and proceeded to the dreaded feast.

The feast was slow and awkward because Anya Waynwood refused to understand why Raya and Seren rushed to the Queen in the North and called her Ma. Lady Waynwood also quizzed Sansa interminably about the death of her third husband as if there might be more to the statement, “he fought the dead bravely, when he died we burnt his body so he didn’t join them.”

There was a shriek from Sweetrobin’s direction and Lady Waynwood looked alarmedly behind Sansa’s chair. Sansa turned to find that Ghost was behind her, she scruffled the wolf under his chin, perhaps more demonstratively than she needed to.

“I thought the King in the North would have his wolf with him?” Lady Waynwood said with a tight stillness.

“He does,” she replied, “this is my cousin’s wolf.”

“The Targaryen bastard?” Lady Waynwood said, “Where is he? Point him out to me.”

“I cannot see him,” Sansa said, discounting Lady Waynwood’s first words.

“I have heard various tales about him.” Lady Waynwood claimed.

Sansa said nothing, if Lady Waynwood didn’t know her domestic situation already, she couldn’t believe it would still be a secret come morning, to the people of Winterfell it was a curiosity ripe for endless gossip and supposition. Her feelings about it wove together like a braid, she knew the disapprobation made everything harder, she knew it was trivial who she loved or how compared the devastation of the wars, the long years of hunger, she knew that sometimes it tingled across her skin to be considered the very model of wantoness.

Looking across the hall she saw that Gilly had ended up with Torr and Alarra. She knew that Jon and Theon would be talking to the knights and guards in the Vale retinue and that the gossip they would regale Theon with and battle stories they would press on Jon might prove useful. She longed to pull them to her and out of the whole debacle but life was never as simple as that.

Lady Waynwood had finally been charmed by Mara Umber, who was reciting information about prominent Vale houses as if she had had the kind of education Sansa had received (rather than an ad hoc combination of how to shoot snow hares, calculate how long your grain stores might last, and embroider in poor light). So Sansa feigned tiredness and left, Gilly and Ghost both following her.

Alarra was asleep on her little cot bed in the bedroom and Torr was half asleep in Sansa’s arms when they both came into the solar.

“Am I free to talk about bouncing-“ started Theon a little too loudly.

To which Jon said “shhh!” even more loudly.

Sansa rolled her eyes at them both, “if you can settle Torr in his crib, I’ll consider it,” she said to Theon and he took Torr with somewhat exaggerated care.

“You need to get Ghost into the bedroom,” she said to Jon.

“Why?” Jon said indignantly, “Oh, but he’s sleeping, he’s not in the way.”

“Jon, I’m not having Ghost in here.” Sansa said briskly.

“Yes, mama,” he said, and Sansa could see how assumed his meekness was for once, “Ghost,” he said in entirely a different tone, “guard the pups.”

Ghost went through the bedroom door and Sansa could see that Theon had had to flatten himself against the door jamb to let the direwolf in.

“What do you mean by the ‘mama’s? What do you mean by the ‘bouncing’?” she asked them one after the other.

“I want to -” they both began, then they were both looking at each other and Theon was almost laughing and Jon was frowning and pouting.

“Sit down on the settle with me,” she said. They sat either side of her, they each had an arm along the back of settle, Sansa could tell their fingers were tussling behind her neck.

“You may go first, my snow prince,” said Theon, his eyes alight.

“I want milk, mama,” Jon said slightly too quickly.

“And you want to call me mama?” Sansa asked.

“Aye, for tonight,” he replied, “it’s just a game.”

“It’s just a game, he doesn’t have any confusing feelings about _your_ mama,” Theon said, grinning.

“Theon!” Sansa said sharply, and then bit her lip, worried at the echo of her mother in the admonishment.

“It may be that some games interest me more than others,” Jon claimed, “but we don’t have to play it,” he added sheepishly.

She weighed the game’s possibilities, “And will you be mama’s good boy and do as mama tells you?”

Jon did a curiously effective impression of his own frowning self as he replied “Yes mama.”

Theon gasped dramatically, “Jon Snow can you brood at will? How can I not know this?”

“Maybe you haven’t looked hard enough,” Jon said, slightly petulantly.

“You know I have,” Theon countered.

Sansa laughed, “you better kiss him,” she said more to Jon, though it could have been to either of them and then she was pressed between them because Theon had leaned over her and Jon’s hand was on her knee. Pressed between them with the hot ache of wanting to be fucked and the soft singing of her heart and a clarity deep in her bones that together the three of them had knotted something that could not be undone. Pressed between them imagining the swiftness of Jon’s tongue, the play of Theon’s lips. They were a pretty picture just for her.

When they drew apart, they were both looking at her.

“Theon?” Sansa said, aware he hadn’t explained his want yet.

“You didn’t say, yes, mama, naughty boy,” he said to Jon.

Jon snorted slightly, Sansa looked at him, trying to keep herself composed in the game.

“Sorry, mama,” Jon said.

Sansa tried to smile a benevolent motherly smile that still held wanton promise.

“Theon?” She said again instead, not sure she’d quite managed what Jon was looking for.

“I want to watch you, I want to watch you bounce on Jon’s cock, I want you to make the prettiest pictures for me, to see your tits bounce, to see Jon’s hands grip your waist, to see his curls bounce, I want to see you bite your lip as you quiver, I want to see Jon frown as he spills.”

Jon leaned over her, “What do the prettiest pictures do to you Greyjoy?” he asked, as Theon took a sharp breath in response to Jon’s hand.

“What if I said you can look at the prettiest pictures but not touch anyone, including yourself, unless I say?” Sansa asked Theon.

Theon nodded, then he grinned, suddenly mischievous “of course, mama,” he said.

“You’re both calling me mama tonight?”

“Yes mama” they said in tandem and suddenly the appeal blossomed and Sansa let herself slip into the game.

She stood, she had removed the girdle already and with its wide neckline it was possible to pull the dress down over the softness of her tits, her hips, until it was a pool of pink on the floor. She pulled off her underdress, the petticoats and shift.

She stood in just her stockings.

“Is this a pretty picture?” She asked Theon.

“It’s very pretty. Mama, please would you take off your stockings too.” Theon replied.

“Jon take them off.”

“Yes mama,” Jon said. He sat at her feet and untied the garter, rolled one down carefully, she lifted her foot for him to pull it from her toes, then he took off the other.

“Now roll them neatly and tie them with the garters.”

“Yes mama,” Jon replied.

“Are you just going to-“ Theon began.

She put her finger to her lips whilst giving him her fiercest look, “mama knows best,” she said imperiously, then bit her tongue so as not to laugh.

“Good boy, Jon,” She said to him as he held up the stocking bundle.

“Thank you, mama,” said Jon.

“Theon, do you not have something to say to mama,” she reprimanded.

“Sorry, mama” he said without looking the slightest bit sorry.

“You may undress,” she said to Theon.

“Yes, mama,” he replied

Sansa gestured Jon up, she kissed him, held his bottom lip between her teeth for almost too long. Once she had pulled his tunic and undershirt off she put his hands on her arse, pressed herself into him. She ran her fingers through his hair, repeated “what a good boy you are,” and although it was partly a game, a show, she felt the glow in her cheeks, the clench between her legs, the whispers of their skin together. Jon breathing was uncontrolled, with bitten down moans. She pulled off his boots, breeches, small clothes, teased his cock with her fingers, stood back to let Theon take in the picture.

“You may touch yourself for a moment Theon, I want you fully hard, I want you ready and waiting,” she told the watching man.

“Yes mama,” he said.

“Jon, you are being a very good boy, tell mama what you want again.”

“I want milk, mama, I want to suck the milk from your lovely tits,” he said, “please.”

“Jon you’re a big boy now, you can’t suck it, you’ll have to squeeze and lick it down,” Sansa said, remembering the time Jon had been imagining earlier.

She sat on the settle and let him kneel before her and press and coax the milk from her tender breast, brought Theon down to the other breast to do the same. It wasn’t the sensation, it the lascivious, unbridled nature of the scene, that made her shift, made her yearn, made her cunt wet.

“There,” she said to Jon, stroking his hair “what a clever boy.”

She pushed each of them gently away.

“Still hard and ready?” She asked Theon.

“Yes mama,” he said, he was smirking a little, it made Sansa want to tut at him.

“And you want to watch me fuck Jon?”

“Yes, mama.”

“You better lick my cunt so I’m ready for him.” Sansa claimed, knowing she could have pushed Jon to the floor right then and there, but taking too much pleasure in ordering Theon, in spinning him out, instructing him “no hands, just your mouth.”

She splayed her legs and he bent his head to her and put his tongue to her pearl. Even though she was gasping and wanting to close her eyes and cover her face she managed somehow to swirl her hands around in a way that conveyed to Jon he needed to make the floor a place comfortable enough to fuck on.

“What a good boy,” she said to both or neither of them, then stood up suddenly leaving Theon confused.

“You can turn to watch your pretty picture, but no touching.”

She slicked herself against Jon, and ran her hand up his cock then pushed on his shoulder so he sat down on the floor.

“Lie back” she instructed, then climbed astride him, they both gasped with it.

“He wants your hands here and he wants us fast, yes?” She turned to Theon.

“Yes”

“Mama expects better manners,” Sansa managed to say as she gasped with her and Jon’s rhythm, they were moving against each other so that each push together created a desperate, beautiful pulse in her crotch.

“Please, mama,” Theon replied and she heard him enough to look at him, to smirk herself at his cock, hard and waiting as she had decreed.

He raised his eyebrows at her, and Sansa couldn’t quite have described how he shifted but it was as if fucking just air was enough.

“I love the pretty look on your face as you take your pleasure,” Theon began to say, “I love how mesmerised Jon is by the bouncing of your tits, I said they -“

Sansa held her finger to her lips at him, again, and Theon was quiet, there was the whisper of him being caught between watching and wanting. She rubbed her own tits, she moaned with it, let Jon’s hands follow her own and held Theon’s gaze.

She wanted to ask how it felt to watch, to know Jon could feel her cunt, her tits, her skin, to know she could feel Jon’s cock, his hips against her thighs, whilst he had to wait, untouched, but her thoughts would not spin themselves into questions. Because. Because her cunt was quivering as Theon had wanted and her body was shaking and her brain was clouds. She had to reach blindly for Theon’s hand and clamp it over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming with it.

She managed to keep lifting herself slow and steady on Jon’s cock as the clouds cleared and the quiver ebbed. Jon was looking up at her, eyes alight, lip bitten.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” She said to him.

“Yes,” Jon said unsteadily, and pushed his lips together with an almost silent groan, before trying to say “mama.”

She was steady enough to look at Theon and say, “I know you want to see him spill but he’s not spilling in me.” She paused, “get the tallow, he’s spilling in you, yes?”

“Of course, mama” said Theon, getting up.

She slowed further, “Do you want to spill in Theon?” she asked Jon.

Jon nodded.

“I want you two facing each other, but he is not to get kisses or touches unless I say,” she said, not sure what role she was playing now.

“Yes, mama.” Jon said, and somehow he managed to look utterly serious.

Theon returned with the jar and held it out to her.

“You can prepare yourself,” she told him.

“Of course, mama.” Theon replied and then he was looking at her provocatively, whilst he slicked the grease into his own arsehole.

She leaned in and kissed Jon, slow, let his lips reach up for her before their mouths were pressed and burning together. Then she pulled out from the kiss and climbed off him. She stood to let Jon pull Theon into a position where he could push into him, slowly and then tip them both up into a kind of symmetry arched back from one another.

Sansa knelt to Theon, let her tits brush against him, let her mouth linger by his so their breath kissed. Let her finger trace up his cock. He shivered with it. Shivered with Jon’s thrusts.

“Do you want to be touched?” she said.

“Sansa,” was all Theon managed.

She licked the very tip of his cock once.

“Can I -“ he was shaking with each of Jon’s thrusts.

“You’ll have to ask nicely,” she said.

“Can I spill?” he half breathed, half grunted.

“Nicely,” she said.

Theon’s eyes were closed, “please,” he managed, though the tail of word juddered.

“Yes, sweetling,” She said with another slow stroke, another breath against his mouth.

“Harder,” she told Jon, “good boy.”

Then Theon was shaking and pressing his lips together and the spill was against her hand and for a moment she wished it was on her tits and she smeared it up his chest instead as she kissed him, fervid and dazed.

After she had got him to lick his own seed from her fingers, she stood up over Theon’s face without even any real design.

“Tip your head to mama,” she said and he did.

Sansa could not be sure what happened whilst she standing above Theon, with his tongue reaching up into her cunt, with her fingers on her own pearl, firm and gentle and desperate. It was not pretty, it was glorious and torrid. Glorious and torrid that Jon was thrusting into Theon, breathing his name; that she was saying “That’s it, good boy, fuck him harder,” to Jon; that she was saying “Lick mama’s cunt, sweetling” to Theon. Suddenly she wasn’t just quivering with it, she was spilling as if her whole self was a bubbling pool of oil just about to catch alight.

She stepped back from Theon afterwards, trying to keep hold of the sensation, keep it captured, unsure how something so strong could wisp away so quickly. Once she was more sober, Theon looked up at her, with a wild grin, only coloured by the edges of his signature smirk.

“You like being called mama, then,” he said, his face, his collarbone even, dripped with her, but he was distracted by Jon gripping his forearms, pulling him in to kiss him.

Jon did frown as he spilt, it was a pretty picture, Sansa thought, especially as their foreheads were touched together.

“Do you need me to find someone to draw you a bath?” She asked Theon almost laughing, as he climbed off Jon.

Theon shook his head, “I could be fucked by you both every which way, but Beth would only consider me wanton if I asked for a bath in the mid of the night, when there is feasting to clear and guests to attend to.” He looked at her with wide, innocent eyes, “please could you warm the water though, mama?”

She put the copper kettle onto the fire and fetched the wash bowl and soap. She was shivering when she came in with it.

“Sit with us,” said Jon, “we’re still warm.”

“Wash first, then sit,” she said, catching the steaming kettle before it whistled.

Afterwards Theon had wrapped her in the drying cloth and they had all sat on the rug, Sansa held against Theon’s chest facing Jon, their legs a nest around her.

“You’ll have lots to remember about tonight to distract you from punching future suitors,” Theon said to Jon.

“Hmm,” Jon replied, but his eyes were smiling.

“Future suitors? What about Sweetrobin?” Sansa asked.

“Oh they know that’s a fool’s errand, they must be after something else.” Theon supplied.

“I’d warrant its independence, they want our support for their independence, the guard I was speaking to talked a lot about recruiting men,” Jon added.

“And say they negotiated strong trade ties that would help their cause, but a marriage deal would be greater surety than trade, I still think they will push for something,” Sansa said, but she was thinking too about how they’d try to use her refusal, “they’ll ask for Mara.”

Jon’s teeth clenched, then he sighed, “there’s still a snowhole,” he said grumpily.

Theon shook his head, “They need something that makes it difficult for Robb to support the Dragon Queen, and I think that’s in the North’s interests too.”

“You think we should favour the Vale and tie Robb’s hands from supporting Daenerys?” Sansa asked.

“I think so,” Theon said.

“For personal or political reasons?” Jon asked him.

Then Theon was laughing, but Sansa was still thinking, “I couldn’t,” she said more to herself than either of them, “no marriage alliances for 8 year olds, no marriage alliances for anyone, unless grown men and women arrange them for themselves, let them be a Southron custom.”

Jon smiled at her, then sighed, his eyes flicked to Theon, “I’m still interested in Theon’s desire to thwart the King.”

“I don’t want to thwart the King, that’s treasonous and the Crown is right here,” Theon actually snaked the back of his fingers down her as he spoke so Sansa had to look up at him and roll her eyes.

Jon frowned at him and waited.

“There is a reckoning to have with Robb, and the sooner it happens, the sooner it’s done.” Theon explained.

“Aye,” Jon agreed, “a reckoning.”

Sansa looked at Jon, his face set like it had been, years ago, in war counsels, “I’m sorry,” she said.

“What for?” said Jon, as Theon said, “Don’t be.”

“I made this reckoning, all the reckonings,” she said, sadly.

“We all made the reckonings,” said Jon, leaning towards her and taking her hands.

“I wouldn’t undo any of it, we wouldn’t undo any of it, it made Alarra and Torr,” Theon said.

“But they’ll be reckonings for them too,” she said, her fears swimming to the surface, “you hated it,” she said to Jon.

“It made me,” he said, softly, “and,” thoughts flitted across Jon’s eyes, unreadable and all too clear, all at once, “Today, Vayona Poole said to me, Alarra might have 2 fathers, but I have 4 mothers, 3 of them living,”

“3?” Theon interrupted.

“Because Gilly is her milk mother,” Jon replied, “there will always be children without a simple mother and father, but if those children know they are loved as Vayona knows.” There was a smile on Jon’s face, it held sadness and joy, nostalgia and hope. He continued, “Alarra and Torr, have the three of us and all the love and protection that brings, and a whole retinue of adults who care for them, their childhood will not be like mine, it won’t be like yours either, or Theon’s.”

She leaned towards Jon and said “I love you” quietly.

“Greyjoy,” Jon said a little brusquely, but then he smiled and his eyes were locked on Theon’s “I love you,” it was a whisper, it was a breath almost.

“I love you,” Theon said, into her hair and then Torr was crying and Jon was trying to command Ghost off the bed and Theon was claiming exhaustion. Finally Torr was fed and Jon had put him in the crib and Theon was stroking her elbow in his sleep and -

There was a weight on her and little feet digging into her.

“Mama like Da,” Alarra said.

“What?” She said groggily.

“Mama no nightshirt, Da NO nightshirt.”

Sansa could feel that Alarra had scrambled off her and onto Theon, “Papa, where ephelant?”


End file.
